FiTE Concerns

[Shazman]

I have some things I'm curious about in this scenario.

1) Why are the NKVD border units set on 'ignore losses' and also fortified? Most didn't even make it to their defensive positions and they certainly weren't going to be able to stand against regular German units. For the most part they were easily over run.

2) So many Soviet units begin with their full transport. This was not the case. Many had little or no transport. Many of the mech units didn't have trucks for their infantry components. They had to walk so the mobile units (tanks) went into action without infantry support. Still others had to take commandeer civilian transport.

3) Many Soviet units that were not at full strength begin the game fully manned.

4) Soviet military 'doctrine' (in the Western sense) was that of counter attack. This was followed as much as possible for at least the first week. No Soviet units should be allowed to move east of their starting postitions for the first turn at the very least.

5) Recon for either side should never be very high. All through the war no one seemed to actually know what exactly the other side was doing unless they were in direct contact with the opposing sides units and sometimes had no good idea what their own units were doing or where exactly they were. The Germans were much better at understanding what was happening with their units and what the enemy was doing but the Soviets communications were abysmal until the last part of the war and their recon was worse than the Germans all through the war.

One good example for the Germans was the Soviet defense of Smolensk. Timoshenko's Western Front was given four of Budenny's reserve armys as well as the 16th army of Lukin for the defense of Smolensk and two other newly organizing armies, 24 and 28, were placed around Viaz'ma -- Spas-Demensk. The Germans had no idea these armies were set in the way of their advance until they actually ran into them. In the game these would have been spotted long before contact.

For the Soviets just look at their 42/43 winter offense in the south. They had no idea what Manstein was doing and so he was able to destroy much larger forces with superior manuever and attack stopping the Soviet offensive in it's tracks and destroying a large number of Soviet armies. So much so the Soviets were concerned about a German offensive to the gates of Moscow since Manstein managed to decimate the Soviet forces in the south after he got done with them at Kharkov. Within the context of the scenario this would not be possible because the players have far to much information available to them about the opposing side.

Less recon is a good thing. Make the scenario much more interesting and provide both sides with the ability to actually surprise each other.

And get rid of the choo choo and motor noises (sound recon at 1000 km is kind of ridiculous) and the following of opposing units during their turn.

Having not played this scenario beyond the first turn these are the things I have so far seen that make me cringe.

I am a great fan of the East Front and I feel this could be a very good scenario if only a few changes were made to make it a little more real. I understand the limitations of the game make it a bit difficult to get everything right. Also, I see some people say it is too easy for the Germans, change it for better balance. I see others say it is too easy for the Soviets, change it for better balance. Perhaps it isn't the scenario but rather the difference in the people playing the scenario. [:D]

[larryfulkerson]

Very very nice report.  Keep those reports coming.  Zort (Buzz) is looking for this sort of thing for the MOD of FITE he's working on.  I like it.

[Shazman]

Something else I've noticed about this scenario. Why is there no increase in German replacements in 1943? Production was almost doubled but nothing in the scenario to show this. I can't imagine it all went to other fronts.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Shazman
And get rid of the choo choo and motor noises (sound recon at 1000 km is kind of ridiculous) ...

Sounds like you need to turn "Sound Effects" off.

Also, be aware of the reduced readiness and supply levels of most Soviet Units at the start, and the Shock advantages the Axis start with. They could account for some of the factors you've mentioned.

[Shazman]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Shazman
And get rid of the choo choo and motor noises (sound recon at 1000 km is kind of ridiculous) ...

Sounds like you need to turn "Sound Effects" off.

Also, be aware of the reduced readiness and supply levels of most Soviet Units at the start, and the Shock advantages the Axis start with. They could account for some of the factors you've mentioned.

How do you turn it off for your opponent? [;)]

I've gone through the scenario in the editor and dumped the scenario. Looked pretty much everything over. I realize alot of things can't be modeled such as the Soviet forces south of the Pripets being much less surprised than those north of the swamps.

I don't really have a problem with the supply and readiness for most of the Soviets and the Shock for the Axis might be a wee bit too low for the first turn.

There should be a way to prevent the Axis recce units from running several hundred kilometers ahead of the main body. These were the eyes of the division, not race cars. There were moments in the far south of the campaign where recce units were sent a couple hundred kilometers out, for instance to the Caspian coast. But it was rare to do something that radical. Have not figured out how to make units suffer if out of gas too. They still roll ahead, full speed. Maybe they stop at the neighborhood BP for a fill up. [:D]

This is a great scenario. [8D]

Could drop shock to 70 for the Soviets to stop the wholesale retreat to the east since anyone doing this would have been summarily shot the first week. As it was some officers were shot anyway and many units didn't have the same C.O. two days in a row.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Shazman
How do you turn it off for your opponent? [;)]

Why do you care?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: Shazman
How do you turn it off for your opponent? [;)]

Why do you care?

Let me clarify: There are no sound effects during the PBEM Playback if the moving unit is invisible.

[vahauser]

ORIGINAL: Shazman

I have some things I'm curious about in this scenario.

1) Why are the NKVD border units set on 'ignore losses' and also fortified? Most didn't even make it to their defensive positions and they certainly weren't going to be able to stand against regular German units. For the most part they were easily over run.

2) So many Soviet units begin with their full transport. This was not the case. Many had little or no transport. Many of the mech units didn't have trucks for their infantry components. They had to walk so the mobile units (tanks) went into action without infantry support. Still others had to take commandeer civilian transport.

3) Many Soviet units that were not at full strength begin the game fully manned.

4) Soviet military 'doctrine' (in the Western sense) was that of counter attack. This was followed as much as possible for at least the first week. No Soviet units should be allowed to move east of their starting postitions for the first turn at the very least.

5) Recon for either side should never be very high. All through the war no one seemed to actually know what exactly the other side was doing unless they were in direct contact with the opposing sides units and sometimes had no good idea what their own units were doing or where exactly they were. The Germans were much better at understanding what was happening with their units and what the enemy was doing but the Soviets communications were abysmal until the last part of the war and their recon was worse than the Germans all through the war.

One good example for the Germans was the Soviet defense of Smolensk. Timoshenko's Western Front was given four of Budenny's reserve armys as well as the 16th army of Lukin for the defense of Smolensk and two other newly organizing armies, 24 and 28, were placed around Viaz'ma -- Spas-Demensk. The Germans had no idea these armies were set in the way of their advance until they actually ran into them. In the game these would have been spotted long before contact.

For the Soviets just look at their 42/43 winter offense in the south. They had no idea what Manstein was doing and so he was able to destroy much larger forces with superior manuever and attack stopping the Soviet offensive in it's tracks and destroying a large number of Soviet armies. So much so the Soviets were concerned about a German offensive to the gates of Moscow since Manstein managed to decimate the Soviet forces in the south after he got done with them at Kharkov. Within the context of the scenario this would not be possible because the players have far to much information available to them about the opposing side.

Less recon is a good thing. Make the scenario much more interesting and provide both sides with the ability to actually surprise each other.

And get rid of the choo choo and motor noises (sound recon at 1000 km is kind of ridiculous) and the following of opposing units during their turn.

Having not played this scenario beyond the first turn these are the things I have so far seen that make me cringe.

I am a great fan of the East Front and I feel this could be a very good scenario if only a few changes were made to make it a little more real. I understand the limitations of the game make it a bit difficult to get everything right. Also, I see some people say it is too easy for the Germans, change it for better balance. I see others say it is too easy for the Soviets, change it for better balance. Perhaps it isn't the scenario but rather the difference in the people playing the scenario. [:D]

#1. I agree. Those NKVD border guards were not real combat units. They were more like a combination of political/military police units than combat troops. They were nothing like the later NKVD 'No Retreat' units that were ruthless and totally determined to take no step back.

#2. Transport units in TOAW are modeled differently than you might think. In a lot of cases, lots of transport units simply create traffic jams (especially wagons). I don't have any big problems with Soviet level of transport. All Soviet units are pretty much slower than their German counterparts.

#3. The game uses 'generic' units for both sides. This means that there is a huge 'fudge factor' regarding unit strengths. Since the Soviet proficiencies are generally inferior to the Germans, this isn't a major issue as I see it.

#4. Very difficult to force the Soviet player to conform to "history" while allowing the German player to use 20/20 hindsight to his best advantage. This is the single biggest issue regarding the play-balance of this scenario. According to the expert players, the Soviets are tough to beat if they are allowed to fall back into the interior and form a strong line. There is no easy way to solve this problem.

#5. I like the concept of weakening theater recon for both sides. This could use some testing to see how it actually works in practice.

[philturco]

Does anybody think the rules about russian(and german) troops digging in needs modification. Think about it. The russian army is able to fortify hundreds of miles of lines in late june-early july. All this is done amidst the chaos of a disorderly retreat/rout under a sky dominated by Stukas on the prowl for anything that moves. How do the russians get the supplies forward needed for construction of hundreds of miles of fortifications. Cement,steel,wire and the like as well as workers would be needed in quantity. Hitler couldn't build but a thin crust of fortifications( the atlantic wall in france) and he had time,men and material. Russia builds fortifications 2or 3 hexs deep in FITE to halt the axis drive. They extend the length of the front and are completed by fall.

[SMK-at-work]

There's clearly a lot of myth/disonformatoin about hte Soviets still out there!! :/

It is easy..and IMO too common....to overstate the problems that existed - the Soviet Union, as a whole, was not a completely disorganised useless country in 1941 - the army was still trying to behave in a professional manner throughout the disasters - and often succeeded.  Such debacles as the great encirclement at Kiev were high command problems - and the military very quickly sorted out most of the problems that existed on the eve of Barbarossa.

Just think - the USSR put about 6 million men into arms in the last 5 months of 1941 - the army was stronger in December (in numbers) than it was on 22 June.  They had shifted massive factories a thousand miles east and got production up and running again, they were rebuilding expertise at all levels of command, etc., etc.....

Fortifications well to the rear? They had 250,000 muscovites digging them while the Germans were still a couple of hundred miles of - how to represent that?

Local supplies could be sourced for fortifications/entrenchements - all it takes is wood, and picks and shovels - and historically hte Soviets did dig - prodigiously.

As a former infantryman well used to digging in I reckon hte 1-2 weeks it normally takes to dig in a unit in FITE is quite reasonable - perhaps a bit long even.

Gradual deterioration would be appropriate tho - 1%/move in good weather - 2% in mud perhaps.

The NKVD border guards WERE combat units - they had machine guns, mortars and anti-tank guns.  LAter on the NKVD divisions were treated just like rifle divisions and were alongside them in infantry corps - not behind them as has been suggested - AFAIK any such "morale boosters" were the "normal" political detachments within division sized units - not separate.

The border guards are problematic & IMO should be represented as split up divisions - the divisions could reform and would have the same TOE as normal rifle divisions, since all of them were later redesignated as ordinary or guard RD's.

Recon is fine IMO - neither side gets much info about what's happening behind the lines.

Soviet lack of transport, comms, etc, is simulated by abysmal readiness values - in Zort's mod we lowered them even further. If you try to move the Soviet Mech corps you'll find their combat values plummet very quickly indeed - those that survive the first few moves are best moved to somewhere vital and then left for a few weeks to recover!!

Again in Zort's mod we had a house rule that no units in the "new territories (ie those areas occupied by the USSR in 39 & 40 - Poland, Baltics, Bessarabia)) were allowed to be moved out of them

Not to overstate the Soviet ability either - but you can't just write the USSR off in 1941.  If you don't have "Stumbling Colossus" by Glantz then you absolutely must get it - also I strongly recommend the Soviet OOB series by Charles Sharp published by Nafziger - a bit expensive to get the lot, but chocka full of absolutely vital information to anyone serious about discussing the progression of the Soviet army. 

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Bibbo

Does anybody think the rules about russian(and german) troops digging in needs modification. Think about it. The russian army is able to fortify hundreds of miles of lines in late june-early july. All this is done amidst the chaos of a disorderly retreat/rout under a sky dominated by Stukas on the prowl for anything that moves...

Well, disorientation and confusion are things that are very hard to simulate except in the crudest way in TOAW.

Sure, had the Russians had a nice TOAW map they could have behaved rationally. They could have seen where their units actually were, what their equipment actually was, how many movement points they actually had.

Not to mention at least being able to clearly see where the Germans weren't, if not where they were.

My impression is that the real Russians didn't have this luxury. They must have been issuing movement orders to units that didn't have transportation (or that no longer existed at all), telling them to move along rail lines the Germans had already broken, demanding that they mount attacks from start lines that had already been overrun, etc, etc.

And all with a command structure staffed by the shell-shocked survivors of Stalin's purges. It must have been like trying to pull off a performance of Beethoven's Fifth with a bunk of post-traumatic stress victims handed their instruments at random.

Pretty hard to simulate, too. One would need a game that was lying to you, for starters.

Very parenthetically, a book I can recommend that gives some idea of the atmosphere of those days (rather than details of unit TO&E's) is Rodric Braithwaite's Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War. It's really quite unusual in that respect. Obviously, it won't be much help writing up a scenario (although there is some material), but I think it helps to wrap your head around what it was really like from the Russian point of view. Inasmuch as the book recounts the various experiences and and fates of the various Moscow militia divisions sent to the front that year, it has more on the actual combat than the title might lead one to believe.

Some of those Moscow militia divisions (or their remnants) evolved into Guards Rifle divisions. Gives OJT a whole new meaning...

[Shazman]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright

My impression is that the real Russians didn't have this luxury. They must have been issuing movement orders to units that didn't have transportation (or that no longer existed at all), telling them to move along rail lines the Germans had already broken, demanding that they mount attacks from start lines that had already been overrun, etc, etc.

This was very true and not only in 1941. They were still having these same problems in the 1942 winter offensive. Popov's armored group was all but destroyed by Manstein's bold moves and STAVKA was telling Popov to press on with the attack thinking that the Germans were retreating when actually they were slicing up Popov's forces. And strangely enough the Soviet's Sixth Army was trapped and destroyed in the same counter stroke.

Unfortunately it's difficult/impossible to recreate these types of battles if theatre recon is set too high since there is too much information concerning your opponents dispositions.

BTW, Hitler was only six miles from the nearest Soviet tanks when he left Mansteins HQ at Zaporozhye. There's a nice what if. [:D]

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Well, disorientation and confusion are things that are very hard to simulate except in the crudest way in TOAW.

That's what negative shock is for.

[Shazman]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Well, disorientation and confusion are things that are very hard to simulate except in the crudest way in TOAW.

That's what negative shock is for.

I think what he meant was things like uncoordinated attacks from units in the same formation, not getting a message to move out or misinterpreting messages, moving to the wrong location, attacking the wrong target, shooting at your own units, stuff that sends the general staff into a tail spin. Not many friendly fire incidents in this game. "Oh crap, we just shelled division HQ". [:D]

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
Well, disorientation and confusion are things that are very hard to simulate except in the crudest way in TOAW.

That's what negative shock is for.

That would be the 'crudest way' I acknowledged exists. It's hardly satisfactory -- witness the absence of any really successful France 1940 or Operation Barbarossa scenarios.

[ColinWright]

I remember thinking a couple of days ago that what one would really want would be for the Soviets to be be given a game display where half the information is wrong.

You could deduce that some of the bogus information was bogus -- 'this is July 1941 -- there is NOT an unidentified German armored unit outside Azov.'

However, even when you reassured yourself that this or that couldn't be the case, it would add an element of uncertainty to your planning.

Then, when you went to move a unit you THOUGHT had enough trucks that you THOUGHT was in (123,89) it would move alright -- but from where it actually was, and only as far as it could.

This might work well -- although it wouldn't be much fun. But then, I doubt if many historical Russian generals enjoyed themselves much in the Summer of 1941.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
That would be the 'crudest way' I acknowledged exists. It's hardly satisfactory -- witness the absence of any really successful France 1940 or Operation Barbarossa scenarios.

It's not any cruder than the combat or logistic systems. We don't account for the windage on sniper rounds, or whether the Italians have enough water for their pasta. All the minutia are more or less combined into an amalgamated whole. Same for disorientation & confusion.

The France 1940 problem is primarily a hindsight problem. Handling disorientation & confusion minutia discretely instead of as a whole wouldn't fix it. The French player would still know the Germans are coming via the Ardennes and not Holland. He'll still know that he needs greater depth of defense to handle Blitzkrieg.

And I think there are some good Barbarossa scenarios out there. There's one I'm particularly fond of that seems to work quite well. [:)]

[vahauser]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

And I think there are some good Barbarossa scenarios out there. There's one I'm particularly fond of that seems to work quite well. [:)]

Which one is that?

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: vahauser

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

And I think there are some good Barbarossa scenarios out there. There's one I'm particularly fond of that seems to work quite well. [:)]

Which one is that?

Modesty forbids. But check out this AAR:

tm.asp?m=1893814

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: Curtis Lemay

ORIGINAL: ColinWright
That would be the 'crudest way' I acknowledged exists. It's hardly satisfactory -- witness the absence of any really successful France 1940 or Operation Barbarossa scenarios.

It's not any cruder than the combat or logistic systems. We don't account for the windage on sniper rounds, or whether the Italians have enough water for their pasta. All the minutia are more or less combined into an amalgamated whole. Same for disorientation & confusion.

The France 1940 problem is primarily a hindsight problem. Handling disorientation & confusion minutia discretely instead of as a whole wouldn't fix it. The French player would still know the Germans are coming via the Ardennes and not Holland. He'll still know that he needs greater depth of defense to handle Blitzkrieg.

And I think there are some good Barbarossa scenarios out there. There's one I'm particularly fond of that seems to work quite well. [:)]

Sigh. You're going into 'TOAW is perfect. None of the devices it offers are in any way lacking or need to be improved' mode.

That's obviously not true. The system never will be perfect, and it will always be able to stand improvement. Negative shock is not a perfectly satisfactory way of modelling a lack of command and control, or a lack of knowledge of what one's own units have or don't have.

We could discuss what exactly the nature of the problem is and what practical devices could remedy it -- I've even cooked up some combinations that go far towards addressing some of this using the tools currently available.

But what's the point? Just use negative shock -- it models it all.